Vrbo vs Airbnb vs Booking.com Host Fees: What You Keep

A friend of mine is putting her first place on the market this autumn. She asked me what Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com host fees would cost her, expecting a single number for each. There isn't one, and the way each platform hides its cut in a different place makes them genuinely hard to compare.

Worse, the answer changed this year. Airbnb has just made the biggest change to its fee structure in a decade, Vrbo changes its commission on October 29, 2026, and most of the guidance you will find online still describes the old models.

Here is what each of the three actually takes in 2026, what the fee is calculated on, and why a $1,000 booking is not worth the same to you on all three.

What do Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com actually charge hosts?

Short version, before the detail:

Those three numbers are not measuring the same thing, which is the trap. Airbnb's 15.5% looks well above Vrbo's 12%, but Vrbo is charging your guest separately and Airbnb is not. Read the right-hand column before you conclude anything from the left.

How much is the Airbnb host fee in 2026?

15.5% of the booking subtotal for most hosts, up from roughly 3% under the old model.

Airbnb used to split its cut. The host paid about 3% and the guest paid a service fee of roughly 14% to 16.5% on top of the price you listed. Airbnb is now consolidating both sides into one charge to the host, called the host-only fee. The guest sees no separate Airbnb service fee at all.

The standard rate is 15.5%. Brazil and Mexico are set at 16%. Some traditional hospitality listings pay less than 15.5%, and hosts on the Super Strict cancellation policies can pay more.

The rollout has been happening in waves. Hosts connected through property management software were fully migrated by April 13, 2026. Everyone else is being moved country by country, with final deadlines of September 15, 2026 for hosts outside the European Economic Area and October 13, 2026 for hosts inside the EEA and Switzerland.

If you are launching a listing now, you will almost certainly start on the host-only fee and never see the old model. That is simpler, but it means every comparison article written before 2026 will understate what Airbnb costs you.

What the 15.5% is calculated on: the booking subtotal, which is your nightly rate plus cleaning fee, pet fee and extra guest fees. Taxes are excluded.

The repricing implication catches people out. Under the old split fee, a guest paying $1,000 all-in was paying maybe $870 to you and $130 to Airbnb, of which you then paid 3%. Under host-only, if you keep your listed price at $1,000, the guest pays $1,000 and you receive $845. To land in the same place as before you have to raise your Airbnb price by roughly 15%, and only your Airbnb price, which is a nuisance if you are listed in more than one place.

What does Vrbo charge hosts?

A flat 12% commission, including payment processing, from October 29, 2026. Before that, most hosts paid a 5% commission plus a 3% payment processing fee, around 8% in total, and bookings made before October 29 keep the old rate even if the stay is later.

Vrbo announced the change on October 1, 2026. The 12% applies to your nightly rate plus host fees such as cleaning, pet and extra guest fees, but not to taxes or refundable damage deposits. Vrbo says commission can range from 12% to 15% depending on region, so check your own payout statements once the change reaches you.

Vrbo also ran an annual subscription that removed the commission in exchange for a flat yearly cost per listing. It closed to new hosts and new listings on August 28, 2025, and Vrbo is now retiring it altogether. Existing subscribers move to the 12% commission when their subscription term ends. Our guide to the Vrbo subscription ending covers how to work out what that costs you.

The part that matters most for pricing: Vrbo still charges the guest a service fee on top of your rate. Vrbo doesn't publish the range, and says the guest fee will typically be lower after the commission change. Vrbo has kept the split model that Airbnb is abandoning, with more of the cut now on the host's side.

What does Booking.com charge hosts?

Commission between 10% and 25% depending on your market and property type, averaging around 15% globally, with an optional payment processing fee of 1.1% to 3.1% if you use Booking.com's payment system.

Booking.com is the least predictable of the three because the rate is genuinely market-dependent rather than published as a single global number. Commission applies to your nightly rate plus cleaning fees, pet fees, extra guest charges and resort fees. Local occupancy taxes and VAT are normally excluded, provided they are configured correctly in your listing settings, which is worth checking rather than assuming.

Two things are specific to Booking.com and worth knowing before you list:

Visibility costs extra commission. The Preferred Partner programme raises your search placement in exchange for roughly three percentage points of additional commission. Preferred Plus sits above it at a higher rate again. These are optional, but the pressure to join is real once you see what placement does to your booking volume.

Genius discounts come out of your margin, not theirs. Joining the Genius programme gets you in front of Booking.com's frequent travellers, and you fund the 10% to 20% discount yourself. Booking.com does not charge extra commission for it. You are paying in rate, not in fee.

One more thing that surprises new hosts: on a non-refundable booking that the guest cancels or no-shows, you are still charged commission on the booking value where you are entitled to the payment. The commission follows your entitlement, not the guest's arrival.

Payouts arrive shortly after guest check-in, by virtual credit card or bank transfer, and are typically settled weekly or monthly rather than per booking.

Why is the same nightly rate not the same price on all three?

Because two of the three platforms now show the guest your rate as the total, and one adds a service fee on top of it.

This is the single most useful thing to understand and the thing most fee comparisons skip. Take a $1,000 booking subtotal and follow it through:

• Airbnb, host-only fee. Guest pays $1,000. Airbnb takes 15.5%, which is $155. You receive $845.
• Vrbo. Guest pays $1,000 plus Vrbo's guest service fee. Vrbo doesn't publish that fee, so take 6% to 15% as an illustration: their real total is $1,060 to $1,150. Vrbo takes 12% commission ($120) from you. You receive $880.
• Booking.com at 15% commission. Guest pays $1,000. Booking.com takes $150, plus up to $31 if you use their payments. You receive $819 to $850.

Vrbo pays you the most on that table, and it is also the listing where your guest pays the most. If you set the same $1,000 rate everywhere, you are not running the same offer on all three. You are quietly the most expensive option on Vrbo, and your conversion rate will tell you so.

The fix is to set your rate per channel rather than once. Price so the guest-facing total is comparable, not so your listed rate is identical.

Run it the other way, holding the guest's all-in price at $1,000 on all three, and the gap between the platforms nearly disappears:

Same three platforms, and they collapse into a band between roughly $765 and $850. The spread inside Vrbo alone, $765 to $830, is wider than the spread between Airbnb and Booking.com, because Vrbo sets the guest service fee per booking and you cannot see it in advance. The Vrbo figures use the same illustrative guest fees as above and Vrbo's 12% commission from October 29, 2026.

Airbnb is the predictable one. You know your 15.5% before the booking exists. At 12% commission, Vrbo only beats it on a $1,000 all-in price when the guest fee is below about 4%, and you do not control the guest fee. Booking.com drops below Airbnb once the payment fee applies, and lower still if you join Preferred Partner or fund Genius discounts.

None of this should decide where you list on its own, because all of it is per-booking margin and ignores volume. A platform paying you 4% more on 30% fewer nights is the worse business.

Which of your fees are commissionable?

Your cleaning fee is, on all three platforms. So are pet fees and extra guest fees. Taxes generally are not.

That has a direct consequence people rarely price in. If you charge a $150 cleaning fee and pay your cleaner $150, you have not broken even on it. On Airbnb at 15.5% you paid $23.25 in commission for the privilege of collecting money that went straight through you to someone else. Over 40 turnovers a year that is $930 of commission on pass-through cost.

This is not an argument for hiding the cleaning fee in your nightly rate, because that is commissionable too. It is an argument for setting the cleaning fee deliberately rather than just copying what your cleaner charges you. Our Airbnb cleaning fee calculator walks through how to work out a number that survives commission.

What changes when you list on more than one platform?

The fee comparison stops being the hard part and calendar management starts.

Once your place is on two or three sites, the money question is settled in an afternoon and the operational one lasts forever. Two platforms selling the same nights independently is how double bookings happen, and a double booking on a platform with a strict cancellation policy costs far more than any difference in commission rate. Before you add a second channel, get calendar sync between Airbnb and Vrbo working properly.

The second thing that breaks is your cleaner's information. When bookings arrive from three different inboxes, whoever cleans your place has no single place to look for what is happening next week. GleamSync, a vacation rental cleaning coordination tool, reads the iCal feeds from your Airbnb and Vrbo listings, detects the turnover windows between bookings, and notifies your existing cleaner by email, SMS or WhatsApp. Your cleaner does not need an account or an app, which matters when they clean for six other hosts and will not install a seventh tool.

Frequently asked questions

Which platform has the lowest host fees?

Vrbo, on the face of it, at a flat 12% from October 29, 2026 (around 8% before that) versus 15.5% on Airbnb. But Vrbo charges your guest a service fee on top of your rate and Airbnb no longer does, so the comparison is not like for like. Compare what the guest pays for the same night, not what the platform bills you.

Do I pay commission on the cleaning fee?

Yes, on all three. Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com all include cleaning fees, pet fees and extra guest fees in the amount they calculate commission on. Taxes are the usual exclusion.

Is the Airbnb host-only fee optional?

No. It is a phased migration, not a choice. Software-connected hosts were moved by April 2026, and remaining hosts have deadlines of September 15, 2026 outside the European Economic Area and October 13, 2026 inside it.

Should I raise my prices because of the Airbnb fee change?

If you were previously on the split fee and you want the same payout, yes, by roughly 15% on Airbnb only. New hosts starting on the host-only fee have nothing to adjust from, but should be aware their listed price is now the guest's total, which makes it look higher next to a Vrbo listing at the same number.

Does Booking.com charge me if a guest cancels?

On a non-refundable rate where you are still entitled to the payment, yes, commission is charged on the booking value. Cancellation does not automatically cancel the commission.

Related reading

• Is Vrbo cheaper than Airbnb now?
• Airbnb cleaning fee calculator
• How to sync your Airbnb and Vrbo calendars
• Why you should block direct bookings on Vrbo, not Airbnb
• How to choose a vacation rental PMS

Listing on three platforms without losing track of turnovers

Every platform you add is another calendar your cleaner cannot see. GleamSync reads your iCal feeds from Airbnb and Vrbo, works out when each turnover has to happen, and messages your cleaner by email, SMS or WhatsApp without them needing an account. It is $8 per month per property, which is less than the commission Airbnb takes on a single mid-season booking. Try it free for 14 days, no credit card needed.

See how it works